


Regret, regret, regret.

by kabrox18



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I am prepared for Discourse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 11:23:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7975075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kabrox18/pseuds/kabrox18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I love cute mercykill but also awful mercykill where they have a disturbing relationship and mercy is a scary fucker, just as much as reaper is. this is the disturbing end of things.<br/>re: "resurrection"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Regret, regret, regret.

**Author's Note:**

> kind of a bridge/my headcanon of what exactly happened between the swiss bomb and reap's first appearance.  
> bonus points to whomever gets the title reference ;]  
> my inspiration for this shit: http://wedjigamja.tumblr.com/post/146832425768

She brushed a few curls away and pressed a pad of sanitized cotton to the gash, gently wrapping gauze around it. The pad is golden and sticky from the nanotech fluid that helps to close the wound. Those chocolate eyes are still closed, resting against the hard, clinical white of the room. She adjusts the oxygen tube in his neck, taking her time to ensure the tubing in his chest is still secure. He looks ashen, too pale to be real; more gauze and another pad goes around a wound cut in his hand that she already stitched back together with long, clear strands of dissolving thread.

 _Tendons are good now, he’ll have trouble shooting with that hand but it hopefully will repair itself in time_ , she thinks, patting the hand after setting it down to the arm of the partially reclined chair. He suddenly jerks, hand clenching over the bandages as his eyes fly open, a muted scream escaping him with a hiss. The tube glistens in his neck with a thin coat of blood as it’s pushed with the hard exhale, then in with the following inhale. His eyes water and flutter open-closed like butterfly wings in the wind. She shushes him, checking the monitor and touching his face sweetly.

“Relax, Gabriel. I've got you, okay? Shh, shh. Come on.” She smiles softly, rubbing the pad of her thumb over his less-injured cheek, touching soft skin that pokes out from between the bandages. He lets out a silent sob, face twisting as his brain suddenly registers full-body agony that roars its way along his nerves. _Hurtshurtshurtshurts_ boils in his skull and he wants to scream, wants to cry. All that comes out is more soft hissing as he exhales sharply, squirming and shaking. The tube in his throat burns like molten metal, lapping up his neck greedily and oozing from the opening in tiny rivulets of red.

“Gabriel!” She snaps, tipping his chin up. Saline tears alter course, catching on his jawline. She scolds him softly in her native tongue, patching the aggravated opening up slowly and gently running her fingers through his short beard, brushing a fingertip along the stubble.

“Calm down sweetheart, I've got you. Angela’s here.” She lets his head slump a bit, petting his cheek again. His eyes close for a long time and he takes a long, deep breath.

“Be careful,” she murmurs, lifting the interface-laden stump of his right wrist and massaging the darkening flesh around the steel plug. Clucking reaches his ears and he takes in another shaky breath.

“Your arm is dying. Must be a blood clot.” She sounds sharp again, doctor-like and unfeeling. He chokes a bit, worrying his lip between his teeth as he feels _regret_ ooze down his shoulder, reaching to his missing hand and causing a sharp bolt of pain. Something behind and to his left beeps, loud and urgent; he can feel his breath leaving him again.

“Gabe stay here, listen to me, come on, deep breaths!” He gives a watery smile, his eyes refusing to open. So he gets to die again, hmm? Interesting.

Finally the cold floods him and he sleeps again.

\------

Another injection of liquid golden-glow. The warmth fills him a moment and he looks alive again for a precious few moments--she scrambles to staple closed two more injuries. The monitor at her side tracks a faint, but steady rhythm; his chest rises uncertainly, then falls like a drop of molasses. She’s talking, muttering the same phrase over in a crooked mantra.

“Helden sterben nicht.”

The piping in his chest shudders faintly with every pulse of life it feeds into the corpse on her table. Another breath comes, steadier now. The monitor beeps louder and faster; soon, it settles into steadiness to rival a metronome.

“Reyes,” she says, interrupting herself. Did the injection work this time?

“Ziegler.” His voice is cold, hard. Unforgiving. Like the bland concrete floor beneath her feet. Nothing else happens, for a long moment, and she holds her breath as she watches the monitor. He says nothing, despite being awake, but his eyes open. She looks to them, gently tugging one open further to check on it. It's completely black save for a ring of harsh red where his iris should be.

“Gabriel?” There's fear in her voice. What happened? The eye jerks, the lid twitching under the pad of her finger. It then turns, fixing her with an arresting stare.

“Let me die.” He says simply, tone unwavering. He sounds far too alive for his current state and it frightens her, even if she’d never admit it.

“I can't. Heroes never die.”

“I'm not a hero, not anymore. If I was, then why did they promote Jack over me?” She lets go of his eye, leaning back and looking over him. He’s a mess of blackened, dying flesh and bandages, staples and stitches and tape holding him together. She mutely looks to his right arm, hand touching the plug for his artificial hand.

“I'm sorry, Gabriel.” Funny, how she has the angelic suit when he’s the one named after an angel.

“Don't be, Angela,” he says, tone growing softer, “just let go of me. Please.”

“I can't,” she repeats, and looks to the table. She moves toward it and he frowns, the slightest tug of what’s remaining of his lips. Teeth are bared on one side, a perpetual savage grin he’ll never be able to stop. The syringe is ready, so is the bottle of golden fluid; the plunger pulls it into the needle and the _tap-tap-tap_ of her finger against the body of the device is barely audible over the vital signs monitor at his bedside.

“Angela, stop this. Ziegler--I said let me die!” He sounds frantic; not scared, but still worked up.

“Relax,” she commands, and flips his arm, carefully injecting him. He snarls, ruined face in a knot.

The needle pulls free and she sets it aside, adding another pad and bandage to his collection.

“This is not what I intended for you, Reyes.” This time, his mouth twists _upward_ in an almost manic grin. His glistening black hand _moves_ , jerking and clenching despite the flesh and muscle and tendons all being dead. He leans forward, laughing even as his eye sockets bleed, even as those disgusting black and red eyes weep nothing but red.

“You knew _exactly_ what you were doing!” The tone is accusing yet wild; the results of a dead man flooded with nanotech and kept on life support for a week. His face twists again, shredded cheek going sloppy at the edges like half-melted wax. She comes closer, shocked when his deadened hand jolts up through the cuff she had him strapped down with, dull fingertips going long and pointed, as if each finger was run through a pencil sharpener. He grabs her by the throat before she can make any noise, dragging her down and letting greasy black smoke ooze out with his breath.

“You should’ve let me die,” he purred, thumb stroking across her carotid, gentle and icy cold.

“I couldn’t,” she sobbed out, terror wracking her at the abomination she’s created. Her slender hands curl around the thick wrist, the machine beside him wailing as his pulse fades. He doesn’t seem to be dying but everything says he is, flesh going ghastly grey-transparent. Suddenly the machine screaming stops, his pulse thrumming again as he lets go of her, standing and just melting right through the bonds she’d placed to keep him still so she could work. The howl resumes as the detection pads are ripped off, tossed aside carelessly. She rushes to turn everything off and looks to him, clothes a rumpled bloody mess, hair in a haphazard tail.

“Gabriel please, let me fix you.” She can’t help the pleading.

“You already tried to fix me, Ziegler, and look what happened.” He lifts his twisted hand, the black talons shiny under the sharp white of LEDs. He turns, seeming to search for something before stepping toward a drain in the floor.

“Goodbye, Ziegler. I have a suspicion we’ll meet again soon enough.”

She rushes over, a bottle of gold in her hands.

“You’re unstable--Gabe, if you try anything strenuous you’ll go even _further_ , and I won’t be able to help you!”

He ignores her.

“When we meet, I’ll let you have what I no longer can.” He’s gone after the cryptic warning, melting down into a formless blob of black and dropping into the drain.

She looks to the small, clear canister in her hand, opens it, and drinks it straight. She knuckles the remainders off her lip, and sighs with a long-suffering smile.

“Two can play at that game, Gabriel Reyes.”


End file.
